


Mrs. Stilinski Vanishes

by Ark



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Pack Feels, Pre-Slash, Teen Wolf Fan Fiction Contest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 11:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark/pseuds/Ark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“How do you do it?” It's out of Stiles's head before he can stop his fool mouth. He's still a mess about his mom, about her stuff, about how much he misses her and how bad he feels, and Derek doesn't have <em>anyone</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mrs. Stilinski Vanishes

**Author's Note:**

> Written in September for the Teen Wolf Fanfiction Contest. Lokiloo's lovely story [Side Effects](http://archiveofourown.org/works/509052) won. In short, the world needs more Mama Stilinski.

Stiles doesn't talk to anyone about his mom. Not even Scott. Especially not his dad. He has a good dad, one of the best, but a while ago an invisible barrier arose between them about this. It's electrified like the fence in _Jurassic Park_ to keep out T-Rexes.

As time passes more and more of her is disappearing. He and his dad are sentimental types, and they'd agreed to keep the majority of her things. For years Sheriff Stilinski left her closet the same as the day she last closed the handle, and all the jewelry save what she'd been buried in stayed on the dresser. 

But slowly she's going away and Stiles can't stop it. His dad finally packed up the clothes, donating some, and collected the shoes and combs and put the boxes full of her in the basement. The good jewelry went into the safety deposit box and Stiles kept a couple of rings and a pin he remembered her wearing. 

He put it all in the top drawer of his desk, where it sits nearby while he does homework and plays videogames and messes around on the internet, and, as of late, tracks down information about werewolves and kanimas and supernatural forces that should be mythology but have become reality.

He doesn't open the drawer very often these days, but sometimes he does. Stiles wonders what his mom would say about Scott being a werewolf and all the rest of the chaos he's gotten himself mixed up into. 

_It's totally crazy, we're living in a fairy tale, but one of the über-weird Grimm ones, not, like, Disney musical numbers,_ he would have told her, telling her everything in a way they couldn't tell dad -- the legal liabilities and all that -- and her bright eyes would have widened, but she'd have listened, and she wouldn't have laughed at him, and in the end she would have told him to be careful. 

_Sounds like Scott needs your help, though,_ she would have said. She would have understood that Scott couldn't do this without him. She would have trusted that Stiles knew that what he was doing. She had always trusted Stiles beyond what he knew himself capable of, urging him to try and try until he tried it.

At least now when he's at his desk he's active: Stiles does school projects and slays monsters online and leads a double life as the Boy Friday to a pack of werewolves that roam Beacon Hills every full moon. It isn't normal, but it wasn't normal the way he used to be either, before all of this happened, after his mom. After that he used to kind of sit and stare, or make himself do endless struggling push-ups with a vague idea about first string lacrosse, or lie in bed with the covers drawn up over his head like he was little and had a fort made of blankets that no one else could come into. 

But Stiles is better these days, distracted, because of the werewolves. Now he has all this surreal stuff to occupy his brain and a different breaking good vs. evil crisis every day or so. He's _needed:_ Scott needs him, like his mom would have pointed out. Lydia is starting to let herself lean on him. He's one of the few people Allison has no desire to shoot with her bow. Even Derek needs him -- needs his help wrangling Scott, or his tech advice because werewolves are, like, even more steampunk than vampires, or as back-up on some fool mission no one else will attend. 

Stiles is needed, has a real place for the first time in his life, and it scares the hell out of him. 

People are relying on him to be in school tomorrow with notes on how _The Great Gatsby_ ends and in good form for practice at lacrosse and for the pack meeting in the woods thereafter, he's booked all through, and he hasn't felt this panicked since the hospital became his second home. That time taught him that everything ended before you were ready.

While his mom was dying and immediately afterward, people were kind. Everyone was so _nice_. Stiles remembers Lydia's round pitying eyes, saying the first words she said to him since third grade, saying she was sorry, pressing a pretty card into his sweaty hand. He threw out most of the flowery, impersonal sympathy cards a while ago, but Lydia's is tucked into the top drawer. 

Stiles had hated it, all the people and the niceness and everyone talking about his mom like they'd known her even when they hadn't. But at least they'd talked about her, everyone said her name a lot and told stories about her the way that no one does anymore. 

When her things were still in their proper place -- her soft shawl cast over the back of the rocking chair, her gardening tools in the garage all in a row -- he'd been able to turn everything off sometimes and pretend it hadn't happened, that she'd be starting dinner with a clang of pots soon. He could pretend that it was all a bad dream. That it hadn't been his fault.

Now she's getting boxed up and put away and locked into banks. He can't stop it and he doesn't know how to feel and he can't talk to anyone, there's no one to tell who will understand. _Don't you still have a lot of her stuff?_ Scott will ask if Stiles tries to explain that there is less and less of her there each day. Scott won't mean to sound blasé, Scott just won't be able to get it. 

Maybe he can say something to Lydia and he'll get to have her attention again for a little while, but he can't tell Lydia about how he's afraid he's forgetting his mom, that he's terrified he'll wake up one day and not remember the way her voice sounded or the way she smiled. Stiles can't tell Lydia that he's equally frightened of the opposite, scared that he'll always be this, the kid secretly paralyzed by loss and guilt, that he'll never not be this. 

The next day is hard and has gotten him thinking harder because it's the anniversary of her death. It's never easy and Stiles can't imagine it ever will be. He gets up early and makes extra-strong coffee and scrambled eggs for his dad. The toast is over-toasted but it all tastes fine and they eat breakfast without saying a word except “milk” and “salt” and his dad says the eggs are good. 

“Out late after practice,” Stiles says, cleaning his plate in record time. “Studying for the chem test with Scott. He needs all the help he can get. I can be that help.”

Sheriff Stilinski nods absently, getting up to put the dishes in the sink for distant cleaning. “Okay, kid,” he says. He claps a big hand to Stiles's shoulder on his way out and kind of squeezes and lets go, and Stiles says, “I love you, dad,” before the door closes, and that's the way they acknowledge what day it is.

Scott remembers what day it is, or his mother Melissa reminded him, because when Stiles picks him up for school Scott's eyebrows are all drawn up and serious, and he looks like he's considering whether to go in for a dude-hug. 

“Who died?” says Stiles, trying to make a Jedi force-field of hilarity between himself and the day, and Scott punches his arm, and it's less awkward after that. Stiles talks instead about the pop quiz they're sure to have in English. “Are you taking notes here? You better be, because I'm about to blow your brain apart and shatter all your previous preconceptions. Turns out things don't go so great for ol' Gatsby.”

By lunchtime Scott must have told everyone likely to encounter him, because they're all treating Stiles differently. Being _nice_. They aren't usually in the habit of being so _nice_. It's still the social wilds of high school and half of them are, technically speaking, actual wild animals. 

But Allison corners him and gives him a hug, and it occurs to Stiles that maybe Allison would understand some of the stuff that's in his head. So might Isaac, who shares his extra slice of cake with Stiles at lunch, cutting it up and passing it to him without saying why. But he doesn't know Allison or Isaac well enough to say, _Hey, guys, want to talk parental death and the spiraling depths of emotion therein? Pizza's on me!_

Scott definitely told because the niceness ratchets up. Lydia saves him a seat in chemistry, which has never happened in the history of ever. Erica slips him a new pen when his breaks right in the middle of the predicted pop quiz in English, instead of giggling at his inky hands. 

At practice Danny and Boyd pass to him whenever they have the ball, and even Jackson makes a remark about how Stiles is getting much better than just awful. From Jackson that's the equivalent of a warm hug, and it's the last straw. 

Stiles can't take another moment of their good intentions, the way their condolence-card eyes say sorry. It's like they're all talking about her but not really, no one says her name or who she was or why she died. 

When the team hits the showers Stiles texts Scott that he'll see him at the meet-up later and makes it to the jeep before anyone else can embrace him. He's driving blindly and doesn't realize where he's headed until he's already there. He isn't scared to go, but it's been a long time, and he sits in the car a while before climbing out. He doesn't want anyone to say that he's afraid, that he can't face her, can't go to the place that's more hers now than their house where she's vanishing. 

In the graveyard it's quiet, and the sun is starting to go down through the trees. There's a fresh sheath of long-stemmed yellow lilies, her favorite, by the headstone that bares their name. Stiles wonders how long his dad had stayed, whether he'd said anything to her.

He finds himself talking. He frequently finds himself like that but now there's no one to stop him. No one shushes or throws anything or elbows him. “Hey, mom,” Stiles says. “You're never gonna believe what's been going on.” He sits within touching distance of the stone and the lilies, and he tells her. He talks and talks and talks.

“Stiles?”

Okay so he's not scared here _per se_ but it's still a lonely cemetery at dusk, and Stiles jumps at least a foot and possibly makes the sound “eek.” He blinks around and there's Derek standing on the path fifteen feet away, his hands full of flowers. It's an incongruous sight, and Stiles blinks again. 

Derek's still there. “I thought it was you,” he says. 

Stiles nods, agreeing, unsure how to go about explaining the yammering. Maybe some things are self-evident or maybe Derek's werewolf-enhanced ears picked up enough of his babble, but Derek doesn't ask. He moves between the headstones until he's closer.

Stiles rarely knows what to say around Derek, let alone around Derek _here_. “Pleasant night for a stroll,” he tries, and it belly-flops badly. Derek just lifts an eyebrow and shakes his head a little, and looks like he's about to keep moving and they'll agree to pretend this never happened at the pack meeting in an hour. 

That's when he sees that Derek's not holding one big bouquet, but a collection of smaller bunches. He's gathered wildflowers native to Beacon Hills, the purple and white ones that grow in the fields, and the wine-red ones from the woods. They're neatly clipped and knotted off with twine. Nine bouquets. Derek has _nine._

It's not, like, a death-competition or anything, but Stiles ducks his head, looks away from Derek and his burden of flora. Derek catches the motion and pauses, waiting, eyebrow hitching higher.

“How do you do it?” It's out of Stiles's head before he can stop his fool mouth. He's still a mess about his mom, about her stuff, about how much he misses her and how bad he feels, and Derek doesn't have _anyone_. 

Derek's parents died at the same time, and six others that must have meant a lot to him, and his sister even more recently. He doesn't even have their things to freak out over; Stiles has seen enough of the Hale house's scorched walls and burnt-out rooms to know how little survived.

Derek gives him a surprised look, but he doesn't ask Stiles to elaborate, or look huffy the way he normally does. He looks like he's actually considering Stiles's question, like he's never really thought about the answer. Derek knows what 'it' means, what's unspoken: how does he live with so much death?

“I think about what they would want for me,” Derek says. 

Stiles opens his mouth and then he closes it. He's been desperate to be able to talk about this with someone who understands, and he knows with sudden certainty that there's nothing he could say that Derek hasn't thought about or felt himself. Maybe Derek would even understand about how it was his fault, Derek's done and seen enough that it would only be one more tragedy to him. Probably Derek knew what it was like to feel guilty that he was alive and they were not.

It's too much to say when Derek has his own visits to make and Stiles has never said any of this before. But it's such a relief to see the knowing expression on Derek's face -- not pity for Stiles, but a kind of mutual accord, Derek knows how badly it hurts, Derek _gets_ it -- that he can't stop talking. 

“I feel like I'm losing her,” he hears himself saying. “My mom. I'm forgetting details. And we're putting her stuff in boxes. And I keep thinking about what she'd think about that--”

The last part he hasn't fully admitted to himself, but there he is, informing Derek. Derek just stares back steadily. He's all in black for mourning or because it's Tuesday, and his eyes are bright beneath dark hair. He purses his lips and interrupts as gently as a Derek can. 

“Stiles,” Derek says. “You can't keep hold of every little thing. That's not how time works. It's the bigger ideas about people that matter -- who they were and how they made you feel. How they treated others. How they felt about you.” 

Stiles's eyes are pretty wide and his hands make a _do go on_ motion so Derek continues. He says, “The last one's important. You can think about what they'd think, but use that as a guide. Would those who are gone be proud of who you are now? You can't bring them back, but you can try to live in a way they'd like, do the things they would have wanted you to do.”

Stiles's heart is beating somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. It's the first piece of advice anyone's given him about dealing with dead people that _isn't time heals all wounds._ “Does that really work?”

“It helps,” says Derek. “It's a way back.” He regards Stiles unblinking. Hesitates, then doesn't. “You have to do what you can with what you do have. That's living. And one day you'll realize that family isn't static. It expands, it doesn't contract. You'll be welcomed into many, and you'll make your own, the longer you're around.” 

“The pack,” says Stiles, realizing. “That's what you're doing.”

“It's what they would have wanted for me,” Derek says. “It helps.”

Stiles thinks: Derek's making himself a family because he doesn't have anyone else, so that he can live in the present and have problems that are present-tense and not only about what happened to him. He's doing it on purpose and he doesn't look afraid that everything might be taken away again. 

Derek knows better than most how quickly life can change, how wrong it can go, but it doesn't seem to scare him like it does Stiles. At least not anymore. He'd lived without for too long. Instead Derek had collected others who were lost: Isaac, Boyd, Erica, Jackson. Scott, who needed his Alpha expertise. And Stiles -- 

Stiles is part of it, even if he doesn't howl at the moon or slither though sewers. He's an essential ingredient. They're all in this together now, everything has changed, and he hasn't felt more alive since he was a kid, since before she died. That's also hard to admit.

So he tries to do what Derek said, and thinks about how much his mom would like that Stiles has a place, that Stiles helps others and rescues innocents and fights bad guys with his friends, that Stiles is the voice of sarcastic reason in a world gone mad with dangerous creatures and brutal hunters. 

_Sounds like they need you,_ his mom would say. _Sounds like you need them too._

And it's a start. It's a way back. 

He's closed his eyes to imagine her and opens them after a beat. “It helps,” Stiles agrees, and Derek nods. Derek is watching like he knows, like he heard what was unsaid.

Derek spends a while crouched down by the long row of Hales, laying wildflowers. By the time he's done Stiles has made his goodbye. He and Derek leave their dead and go to where their pack is waiting.


End file.
